Mass protests against fraud in the wake of the Mexican presidential elections this summer and a six-months-old standoff in Oaxaca between the authorities and protesters have converted Mexico into a hotbed of insurrection. The target is a long-ruling oligarchy of hacienda owners and industrialists who may have underestimated populist power buoyant today on mass communication techniques and encouraged by theswing to the left on the Latin American continent.

November 9, 2006

By Uli Schmetzer in Oaxaca:www.uli-schmetzer.com

After failing to break the six months long populist protests of teachers, joined by workers and students, the authorities in Oaxaca are resorting to â€˜dirty warâ€™tactics to intimidate the population and those whoflocked from all over the nation to support a protest that has turned into a national cry for social justiceand a more egalitarian society. In this dirty war agents in civvies kidnap people off the streets, some of them innocent bystanders. Released detainees reportsystematic torture. Many people have vanished, classified â€˜missing.â€™ The first reports of executions and bodies are surfacing.

This is just what happened on one â€˜quietâ€™ day this week.

At dusk, when the voluntary workers tallied up thenumbers the total was 22. That meant 22 young peoplekidnapped and missing in less then a day. Everyonehere knows they were snatched by agents in civvies asthey left the rally point on the square and thestreets around the 16th century Santo Domingo Churchin Oaxaca City.Gone without a trace; clubbed, punched and bundledinto cars to join some 30 others reported missing overthe last week in the standoff between a tyrannicalgovernor and a popular protest to oust him.Many of those â€˜missingâ€™ are people not involved in theprotests but snatched off the streets to arouse morefear.

After all at stake in this central Mexican town today is not only the future of a governor and a region, a cacique of the old colonial school who not only fakeselections but sees himself as master over life anddeath, but the future of an anachronistic Mexican political system badly cracking at the seams under thepressure of snowballing insurrections joined by new forces every week. Commentators on both the left and the right agree: â€œOaxaca will determine the political fate of Mexico.â€�

As Latin America swings to the left and marginalized majorities clamor for justice and a better deal the battle lines are drawn in Oaxaca: Around the Zocalo(the town center and seat of the provincial government of Oaxaca) stand the bulk of 15,000 riot police, all fitted out like Star War robots. Their task is todefend the embattled governor Ulises Ruiz. His name,taken in vain as â€˜tyrantâ€™ and â€˜assassinâ€™ is scribbled all over city walls, even on the backs of trucks.

Ruiz is an old style relic from colonial days. He is hardly worse then many of his predecessors, members of the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) anoligarchic party which ruled Mexico for 71 years. But the loathed governor has become a symbol for the evils of a system that rigged its own elections with methods that were not very subtle and represented a fabulously rich and arrogant oligarchy condemning the great mass of Mexicans, particularly millions of indigenous people, to an existence barely above or below thepoverty line.

It was his attitude rather then his alleged election fraud or his manipulation of land sales that landed the governor in trouble. Each year around May theteachers go on strike for more money. Each year, after a few weeks or days, the governor and the teachers union reach a deal. This year Ruiz decided he did notwant to make a deal. He sent in his goons to beat up the striking teachers. And thatâ€™s how the protest snowballed, taking in outraged citizen, students,workers and the poor classes.

Ruiz and his predecessors have clung to their office thanks to the gun-ho paramilitary squads that do their dirty work. Similar paramilitary units work for most of the large hacienda owners in Mexico. These thug-squads are already accused of shooting dead some 15 protesters in Oaxaca including an Americancameraman gunned down while he was filming them discharging their weapons. Even though photos of the gunmen were published in Mexicoâ€™s mass media not one of them has been charged with a misdemeanor. This surprises no one in a country where not one single person responsible for the massacre on TlatelolcoSquare in 1968 was ever tried or indicted despite periodic government promises to bring the culprits to court.

As opposition forces contended governor Ruiz was constitutionally incapable of exercising his duties outgoing President Vincente Fox dispatched the riotpolice to keep the governor in office. It appears clear now the PRI, the old moribund rhinoceros of Mexican politics, will only support the contendedpresidency of Foxâ€™s successor from the PAN (National Action Party) if Ulises Ruiz is kept as governor in Oaxaca. The PAN facing virulent opposition from thedefeated presidential candidate Obrador - who alleges he was beaten by fraud and who has already declared an alternate government in Mexico - needs PRI support if its candidate is to be sworn in successfully next month.

Today the phalanx of riot police and their plastic shields stand on every access road to the Zocalo. The question is how long can they resist popular clamorwritten on nearly every city wall: â€œUlises must go.â€�The answer depends largely on how tough Mexicoâ€™s new president wants to appear once he is sworn in next month and how much backing the protest movement can expect from the opposition and organizations like the Zapatistas or the followers of defeated presidential candidate Obrador as well as an international community that has been taking a growing interest inthe violations of human rights in Oaxaca.

In the meantime the police water cannons, the tear-gas-firing rifles and large doses of pepper gas are keeping the governor safe from being lifted tosafety by the hovering police helicopters.

Less then a mile from the police cordons and slightly uphill, outside the venerable 16th century church of Santo Domingo, the protesters, many of them veteransof a nearly six months old teachersâ€™ strike, are gathered for their battle against the governor. Theykeep vigil day and night, in their thousands. Their fervor has not flagged thanks to modern communication systems that,just as it did with the Zapatista uprising, had a decisive impact on the protests. Two radio stations, one run by APPO (the umbrella organization of the protests known as the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca) the other by university student barricaded into University City on the fringe of town (where they already successfully fought off one police raid)broadcast news about incidents, statements and events around the clock as an effective antidote to the establishment-run TV and radio stations. Thesecorporate stations portray a peaceful city where citizen clamor to be rid of â€˜the trouble makers on the barricadesâ€™ and where protesters not police areresponsible for the dead.

In the square the indignation of the protesters are fueled by videos of the clashes with riot police played over and over. Popular music blares all day, vendors sell food and artifacts, news about those missing or in detention is mega-phoned, signatures are collected, donations are taken.

Late at night many of the protesters drift off to homes or friends places. It is then the agents of the governor pounce. They are well informed about protestleaders identified by spies moving freely, often with cameras, among the throng of protesters.

According to voluntary lawyers not one of those â€˜missingâ€™ had an arrest warrant issued against them.Over the last days, so the lawyers say, 30 people have gone â€˜missing,â€™ without a trace. Between 45 to 50 more have been located in various jails by a battery ofvoluntary lawyers. Most of the detained are students or trade union officials. There are accusations of systematic torture and reports of bodies taken away intrucks, a grim reminder of the 1968 and 1971 studentuprisings.

By mid-week the governorâ€™s judicial system had released 43 additional detainees, all of them after their families, most of them poor with an averageincome of 50 pesos a day, were made to pay a minimum fine of 4,000 pesos ($400 U.S.).

â€œThese are mandatory fines that go right into the pockets of the officials because the prisoners have never been charged nor sentenced. This is unconstitutional, it violates all human rights, but no one in the federal government gives a damn,â€� said one of the lawyers Wednesday.

Many of those arrested had nothing to do with the protests. They were simply picked up as they walked along the streets in the evening. Their arrest issimply a way to pad the pockets of crooked officials.

In the Square, protesters, already impoverished by 192 days on strike, are taking up collections to buy the freedom of those whose whereabouts are known. Copies of the videos showing the clashes go on sale in theSquare and the proceeds are also used to buy the freedom of the imprisoned.In all this drama someone is still making money, and, as usual, by fleecing the poor. (ends)